The early days of the plant-based market saw abundant options for burger patties, nuggets, crumbles and other non-structured items replacing beef and chicken products. These alternatives boasted an array of plant-based ingredients and offered various benefits for consumers. Though, as the market developed, an absence of alternatives to seafood products became more and more apparent.
Some startups, such as SDC portfolio company Good Catch, observed this white-space early and entered the market with alternatives to popular consumer items including fish sticks, fish cakes, and tuna. While others, like BluNalu, began working on cellular agriculture innovation to develop alternatives to conventional seafood items. Despite this innovation, there are still less options for alternatives to seafood compared to other categories in the space.
Recent consumer interest has spurred growth in this area, which is now one of the fastest evolving categories in the alternative protein space. The United States has shown the most interest in these products with a 100 percent increase in searches for ‘vegan seafood’ over the past 12-months. This is followed by an 83 percent surge in Australia and a 45 percent increase in the UK. Searches for ‘plant-based seafood’ have also increased dramatically in Singapore, and Canada.
It’s difficult to say exactly why sales in alternative seafood products haven’t yet outpaced other, smaller, subcategories, but some experts think it could be because seafood is seen as a healthy option when meat isn’t. “Conventional seafood really has a health halo around it,” Marika Azoff, a corporate engagement specialist at the Good Food Institute, told CNBC. “It’s seen as a very healthy food that doctors often tell patients to consume more of.”
Despite this, the reasons to switch to plant-based seafood options are convincing and immediate – particularly when considering the environmental impacts of the consumption.
Recent research from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations revealed that as much as 35 percent of all seafood harvested from the world’s waterways never makes it to a consumers’ plate.
In fact, all along the supply chain, from fishing nets to supermarket shelves, waste is a major problem. In the European Union alone, fishermen tossedtipped at least 230,000 tonnes of fresh fish back into the sea in 2019. More than 90 percent of that waste can be blamed on the bottom-trawling method of fishing, in which the seafloor is scraped, dredging up everything in its path.
As well as unnecessary suffering, this waste is causing detriment to marine ecosystems and destructive fishing practices are devastating underwater environments. This coupled with the pollution from ships and manufacturing processes is severely damaging the environment and creating more urgency than ever before to make the switch to alternative seafood products.